Hi,
I have a HP Pavilion-DV5 laptop that came with windows vista..... It has 2 drives C and D. C has windows and all the other stuff and
D is a recovery drive with almost 8 GB of data in it. I am new to recovery and stuff and I know its possible to reinstall the windows but I want something else.......
I want to install windows 7 in my C drive after FORMATTING drive C (not drive D of course....) and I want to keep the vista recovery option as that is ORIGINAL windows..... Is there any way to do that? I mean what if I install windows 7 and when I want my windows vista back, is there any way to install it from recovery drive??
If you don't alter the partition structure in any way you should be able to do what you're asking, have a go at Windows 7 and later recover the PC back to Vista using the [noparse]D:[/noparse] recovery partition; if you have the option in the start menu to create the recovery disks I would do that also and be sure to make backups of any data you do not want to lose. Below are the instruction for using the HP built in recovery partition.
click to enlarge
HP Recovery Center
Be advised that this will take the machine back to the point when you first took it of the box.
The "HP Recovery Center" will give you the option to send to backup anything you
don't want to lose, so have backup media available to use if you choose this option.
With the machine off press the power button, as soon as you do that start tapping the F11 key.
It may take several attempts to do this, if the first attempt fails, try again.
That should take you to the HP Recovery Center. When there just follow the prompts.
It is pretty much self explanatory. From the time you boot into F11 (not counting
any backups you choose to make) you should be back on a working desktop in about
30 minutes. After it restarts just follow the prompts again to finish the process.
If your first option is system restore select no, which should take you to system recovery.
You want to try system recovery not system restore, unless you have good restore points!
OK it means there's no special thing I need to do while "installing" windows 7?
And you want me to:
1. create recovery DVDs and save my important data
2. format drive C, not altering the partition structure (and leaving drive D as it is)
3. Installing windows 7 with a normal method
and whenever I want my vista back I need to use my recovery partition or DVDs to restore windows vista....
Now let's get this straight, I have no guarantee that it will work, I mean the recovery back to Vista; but if you backup all your data and you have an actual legitimate install key for Windows 7 you may find that you want to keep W_7 and do away with Vista all-together.
Well the problem is that i don't have actual legitimate install key for Windows 7, and I'll have to crack it by some method. That's why I actually don't want to lose that "vista re-installation option"
do you think it would be okay to install a cracked windows 7. I mean can it harm the recovery option for vista in any way?
That shouldn't hamper the recovery option but that is not discussed here at the forums as it's against the forum rules and can result in a ban.
Too bad you don't have another Hard Disk Drive (HDD) that you could install Windows 7 to so that W_7 and Vista will be independent of each other, then you could use the PC BIOS to choose which OS to boot at startup.
The 'legal' way to have a trial of Windows 7 is listed in the tutorial at the link below, after that it can be installed again for another 120; when you install it leave the "Activate Windows Online ... " box un-checked.
If you do go the separate HDD way, here's how; when you add the HDD that you want to install Windows 7 to un-plug the HDD that Vista is on, so that only the W_7 HDD is plugged in, then after W_7 is installed and booting good, plug the Vista HDD in and use the PC BIOS to change the HDD boot order when you start the PC to the HDD you want to boot, this way they'll stay totally separate and independant of each other instead of sharing the same boot files.
Be sure to post back to this same thread with updates.
D is a recovery drive with almost 8 GB of data in it. I am new to recovery and stuff and I know its possible to reinstall the windows but I want something else.......
